The town of Jay continues working on several projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, as crews install water lines, repave streets, pour sidewalks and begin clearing to work on the Bray-Hendricks Park project.
The Spring Street sidewalk project is underway thanks to Santa Rosa County Commissioner Don Salter's designation of $200,000 discretionary funds. According to Jay Operations manager Eric Seib, the project should be completed during the summer of before school starts. The sidewalk connects Commerce Street to the schools.
The CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) project is on track to be completed by mid to late May installing new water lines in neighborhoods.
Crews will continue paving parts of Highway 4 through the town. Seib said they will pave the road east, heading back into town from the Escambia River bridge.
The FDOT (Department Of Transportation) is finished with water lines under Highway 4. The finds for the project paid for the pipe for the water lines and also replaced leaking fire hydrants and update three others.
The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) grant's funding of the engineering survey is in place to replace all the rest of the water lines, which will make the town 100 percent PVC pipe, replacing the old metal pipes, Seib said
Although the renovated livestock market has been empty since the stay-at-home mandate, Seib said there seems to be excitement in the community for the upcoming warm season.
“People are excited for the spring and summer to hopefully get some produce there,” said Seib. “There's a lot of interest, but we are just temporarily held to the growing season and COVID-19 right now.”
Seib said the town is still negotiating the Bray-Henricks Park engineering plan with Dewberry Engineering and that the plan will be flexible, as the town plans to search for funding as the project unfolds. Seib said they have to start with civil work first, installing water lines and underground utilities, then add buildings, then work on the playing surfaces.
New equipment will arrive for the playground sometime in June, so the ground is being prepped. Seib said the town is working on scheduling a community work day to invite volunteers to help with some work. He said they will reuse the swing set that is there after they add some swings to it.
Beginning Monday, May 4, the town will conduct business through the town hall drive-thru window.
The Jay Town Council will meet at 6 p.m., Monday, May 4, at Jay Town Hall.
